Tina Plattner’s Phoenix 12 Leads the Rolex TP52 World Championship

(Sunday 25th August, Puerto Portals) – A pair of third places gained in light sea breeze conditions from the white-hot, 11-strong fleet gives Tina Plattner and the crew of Phoenix 12 the overall lead after the first two races at the Rolex TP52 World Championship on the Bay of Palma. Theirs was a very encouraging opening, and caps a good day for the Plattner family crews as father Hasso on Phoenix 11 finished second in the second race and lies fifth overall.

🎥 Day 1 – Rolex TP52 World Championship Puerto Portals 2019Twists, turns, upsets and protests – and that was only up the first beat. A dramatic opening day that pushed some to the limit. READ MORE – http://bit.ly/321HMCx

Phoenix 12, the older of the two Phoenix boats, put in the best performance of a first day that was not short on drama. At the start of the second beat on the first race, the mast on Ergin Imre’s Provezza crumpled over the side with no warning and no obvious reason. It is a devastating blow for a crew that won the second regatta of the season and were among the top contenders for the world title as well as for the season-long 52 SUPER SERIES title. All of the 52 SUPER SERIES shore crews and sailors have rallied behind Provezza offering every help possible to get the popular Turkish-flagged team, which won here in 2017, back on the water as soon as possible.

It may be the first regatta this season on the Quantum Racing for charismatic owner Doug DeVos, but the defending world champions made the best possible start to the defence of the world title they memorably won in the big winds of Cascais last season. Although they did not have the very best start to Race 1, they worked right early and led arch-rivals Azzurra around the top mark first time up.

While the two lead boats stretched away, Bronenosec struggled at the turning mark, running out of momentum as they tried to shoot the windward buoy from a too tight position. They fouled Alegre and had to make turns, both dropping to tenth and eleventh. But Bronenosec staged a good recovery on the second beat climbing back to a very useful fifth place.

Sled slipped smartly off the second race start line, Adam Beashel and Murray Jones engineering a swift move to the favoured right to lead all the way round the track and register the first win of the season for Takashi Okura’s crew, the battle for second and third playing out between the Plattner crews.

Phoenix 12 tactician Cameron Dunn enthused:

“We’ve got the two boats for two regattas this year. Phoenix 11, the newer boat, is doing all the regattas with Hasso and Tina swapping driving. It’s a big bonus having the two boats at one event, even just for the pre-race training. We’ve had four fantastic training days here to do what we want to do.”

The two teams run an open programme sharing data and coaching, Dunn explains:

“We’re fully open, 100% trying to help each other, there’s no holding back or hiding anything. It feels like we just finished four great days on a really good flow and we’ve learnt a lot. I think it showed out there today. Overall both Tina and Hasso are competitive of course and are competitive against each other, but aren’t we all?! Out on the race course there’s no love lost but we also debrief everything together, share all the data and chat together. [Adrian Stead – Phoenix 11 tactician] and I chat a lot, the afterguards chat about what we’re thinking, we even chat between the races and before the races. We don’t intend to start right next to each other, but we had definitely both wanted the right early, so that’s just the way it panned out.”

Speaking about owner-helm Tina Plattner, Dunn adds:

“Tina is unreal. She would be one of the best owner drivers I have ever sailed with. From execution and just consistency – all you ask for in a helmsman, whether they be professional, amateur, whatever – you just want them to do the same thing all the time. You want every manoeuvre to be the same, so you then can pick your position and have confidence in placing the boat. And she is incredible at that. I know she feels the pressure, and does tell me when she gets nervous, but you can’t see it outwardly when she drives. It’s awesome, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Racing at the Rolex TP52 World Championship Puerto Portals 2019 starts on Sunday 25th August and finishes on Thursday 29th August. You can enjoy live images of the racing supported by expert commentary and analysis every day. All shows will begin 15 minutes before racing is due to start and can be enjoyed at www.52SUPERSERIES.com or via the app.

Did you know?

52 SUPER SERIES Facts

Quantum Racing & Azzurra are the only two teams to have won a 52 SUPER SERIES championship. Quantum won in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2018, and Azzurra were winners in 2012, 2015 and 2017.

Nine new boats were built for the 2018 52 SUPER SERIES by two designers, Botin Partners & Judel Vrolijk.

After 50 races, there were only 11pts separating first and third place in 2017.

TP52 boat owners are captains of industry in a range of business activities

Thirteen TP52 crews will take part in 2018, representing nine different nations: Italy, USA, Great Britain, France, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Germany and Russia.

It takes an average of 2-3 seconds to hoist a TP52 spinnaker to the top of the 22-metre mast

Sailors from over 20 nations are represented onboard the 52 SUPER SERIES fleet in 2018.

TP52s are boats built under a box rule, meaning that each boat must fit within a set of measurement parameters defined by the class rule.

Downwind in a strong breeze TP52’s can sail at well over 20 knots, which is why the owners just have so much fun racing them!

Over 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean every year. We’re working hard to minimise our impact on the environment.

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